Contagion Effect
by A Quarter Past
Summary: Stephen Connor is about to learn that the worst contagion effects happen when new meet old. Ten years after the series, his new team are introduced to one of his old. Rating: Largely attributed to one character who doesn't know how to watch his language.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: To Zaedah. Old friend, if you are reading this, may John replace the void that Miles' character left. ;)

* * *

Part One

* * *

i

Michaelson was a real annoying sonofabitch that was better left ignored in Jenna's most humble of opinions, but when he mumbled a statement near the coffee pot that sounded like it might have ended in a question mark, she looked up from the _Newsweek_ and raised one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows.

"Talk around your breakfast, John, not through it."

He gave her a _biteme_ smile and swallowed his drink, "Coffee, I'll have you know, is not a real breakfast."

"About as real as your accent."

"Oh, lay off already. I've told you, I'm half-Welsh, not all-English with a cocked accent."

When he picked at his teeth and took a seat across from her, Jenna did her honest-to-god best to ignore his existence, but that was like pretending you couldn't hear the fog-horn being blasted in your ear.

"Look, Jen-na. What I was saying was do you reckon we're going to have to do all the paperwork again? Connor's been up in arms about my expense reports all week."

"That's because you haven't done them."

"Have too!"

"On bits of dirty napkins. I don't know what backward place they pulled you out of, but we've got rules here. And paper."

"Yeah, and I follow them."

Jenna snorted, rolled her eyes and was about to comment on the pathologist's inability to comprehend the basic tenets of the NIH's vast rule book let alone make an effort to adhere to them, but his face went slack before she got a chance.

"Well, hold on, now. Who's that nice pair of legs with Frank?"

"Jesus, John! You could curdle a feminist's milk," Jenna turned and caught a glimpse of the woman in question through the room's transparent glass wall, "She's got pants on, you idiot."

"How can you tell that..."

"Trousers!"

But the _Visitor_ tag on the woman's blouse as clear as day, so she definitely was not in-house. She and Frank seemed friendly-like, but Jenna knew he was married to a nice Kim-person, who stopped in on occasion to pick him up for lunch on slow days.

"Whoever she is, she's probably not going to like that you're staring."

"Shut up, you're doing it too."

"Yeah, well I haven't reduced her to a single piece of her anatomy, so -"

"Look, now, two pieces of her anatomy. Gal's got both of her legs."

"You disgust me."

"What's new?"

When Frank and the woman who was more than a pair of legs walked away, Jenna flipped John a snobbish glance and went back to her magazine. A little over three hours later, with John locked away in his lab (finally) and Anna in from one of her medical trials, Jenna was seated in the conference room flipping through old NIH press-releases. She hadn't quite botched the last one she'd sent out, but her wording could better improve, or so Connor insisted.

"I'm no Eva Rossi," she mumbled, going through the 2007 stack, but neither was she expected to be. Her predecessor had been good. So good that she'd wound up in better, more interesting parts of the Hill, probably making a fortune off of using social networking. Jenna had met Rossi once, roughly two years prior, and had been surprised to see Connor crack a smile, he never did that for her (or John...or Anna, really, now that she thought about it). Anyway, that woman was a legend in the making, and Jenna knew very well enough that she, herself, would only ever amount to a footnote in one of John's excuses for an expense report.

"Heads up," Anna mumbled into her file (on the outside, the young doctor was a mouse. Short, nondescript brown hair tucked behind tiny, nondescript ears, and vague hazel eyes - imprisoned behind a nondescript brown pair of spectacles - that always looked pained when their owner was reminded just how much reality sucked. Jenna knew better, though, that the diagnostic expert had a devious streak more than a mile wide. Still waters and all that).

Too late.

Connor arrived with his usual frown, his unnerving gaze flickering between the pair of women at speeds clocked somewhere up there near 'light', "Where's Frank and Michaelson?"

"Lunch."

"Lab."

"It's two in the afternoon, why is Frank still at lunch?"

"You could call 'em."

"No need," John entered the conference room with his patented scramble of a walk and plopped down in the chair beside Jenna, "Just saw him coming down the hall," sotto voice, he added, "with that pair of legs following him."

Jenna elbowed him, "Pervert."

That must have come out a little too loud, because Anna smirked behind her hand, Connor scowled, and Frank strode into the room with a perfectly timed, "Who's a pervert?"

Anna pointed to John, who pointed to Jenna, who elbowed him again.

The woman accompanying Frank _was_ the one from earlier. Up close, Jenna could see that she was in her early forties with (probably-not-dyed) light brown hair, an attractive smattering of freckles across her nose, and _yes_ a nice pair of legs (appropriately hidden beneath a sensible pair of gray trousers). But this was all very unimportant compared to the amount of blinking Connor was doing in her direction, mouth contorted in an unattractive grimace of something Jenna had never ever seen before.

Jenna immediately liked her, "Hello! Frank's being rude and not introducing you. I'm Jenna, over there is Anna, and the slob next to me is sometimes referred to as John."

That earned a pretty smile, "Only sometimes?"

"We sometimes just call him, 'you'," Anna offered in explanation, "mostly in derision."

"They love me," John added, "they really do."

"I'm sure," said the woman, pointedly ignoring the silent conversation that Frank and Connor were now having behind her back with their eyes, "I'm Natalie Durant. Nice to meet all of you."

Something curious happened then. Namely, John choked on his tongue and began coughing violently into his fist, and Anna looked genuinely curious for the first time since they'd dealt with that fake Ebola case in Virginia.

Jenna contemplated giving John's back a solid thwack, but left him to it, "Either John here is allergic to your name or it means something."

Now that the eye-fight between Frank and Connor had ended, strangely enough in the favor of the former, the latter spoke at a quick clip, "Dr. Durant works at the regional office for the World Health Organization."

Sensing that her day was about to explode with medical and perhaps intra-office intrigue, Jenna grinned, "Cool."

ii

Frank was awesome, in that way where Jenna looked at the supposedly older and wiser and bought that he was both. Very much older than she was, and all that much wiser. He was the guy she could turn to when Connor was going apocalyptic about one thing or another, and with little more than a, '' _you hold him down, while I punch him''_ , Frank would leave the room and work some sort of magic and viola, Connor deflated to a normal level of anger.

As far as she knew, he and the big guy went all the _way_ back - if not to diapers than to their infant days at the NIH. Jenna's lack of curiosity regarding both men had been an excellent preventative for her learning any more than that, which meant that when a _little_ bit of unhealthy interest tickled her fancy, she had to go to John.

"All right," she mumbled, shoulders hunched as she sat next to him in economy on their flight, "you know who that lady is, otherwise you wouldn't have choked on your own tongue."

John adopted the air of a man who finally was allowed to feel pride for his gossiping ways, "She's my predecessor."

"Juicy, but why does _that_ matter any? The turnover rate here is through the roof these days. I'm surprised we've held on to Anna this long."

"Still waiting for the CDC to call," Anna said from the row behind them; apparently the mousy brunette was hovering.

"Ha," John intoned, lowering his voice further, so as not to include the several strangers around them in their conversation, "She was at the NIH _forever_ in Connor-years. Outlasted a couple handful of other hires, apparently. I don't know anything other than that, except for what we saw this morning."

"What's that?" Anna whispered.

"Connor doesn't like her."

"Connor doesn't like anyone," Jenna said automatically, the response all but instinct now.

"He likes Frank," Anna muttered.

"He tolerates Director Ewing," John agreed.

"Well, Connor doesn't like people for three reasons," Jenna said, "They disappointed him, he disappointed them, or they suck at their jobs."

"Everybody disappoints Connor," Anna said, rather astutely.

"Yeah yeah, necessary but not sufficient condition, we got it," John was growing annoyed yet oddly excited, "and that woman _clearly_ did not suck at her job if she worked her way up to the WHO. Wowza, and her publications. Her research warms my heart among other things."

"Ew."

"I saw the way you were looking at her, Anna," John defended himself, "you'd take a bite too."

"I like my ladies to be artists; those pants of hers speak to me about as much as an instruction manual does. No, thank you."

"Connor inbound," Jenna hissed.

All three perked in their seats and sealed their mouths as Connor approached them from the front of economy. He had a folder tucked under one arm and a tablet grasped in the other hand. When he reached them, he offered the tablet to Jenna and gave Anna the folder, "This case will be cut and dry. We're allowing the WHO assist, so keep your heads down and do what you're told. Dr. Durant will be in charge."

"More beautiful words have never been spoken," John sighed, "I'll do anything she tells me to."

Connor rolled his eyes - a sign of minor annoyance if there ever was one - but Jenna watched long enough for it to morph into a clenched jaw and flared nostrils.

"Ignore John, yeah? He's just excited he doesn't have to write that expense report yet."

"Oi, woman. Don't remind him."

"There are three hours left on the flight," the imposing blond stated blandly, "I recommend you take that time to finish it."

iii

"All right, everyone," the woman of _even greater interest_ _now_ said in a tone that had grown increasingly more exhausted in the past five days, "great work."

Jenna hadn't figured in, while sitting on the plane roughly a week prior, that she wouldn't be in a position to witness the great Dr. Durant at work, or witness her interactions with Connor at all. According to John, however, nothing of importance had actually occurred. Durant monitored the lab while Connor was elsewhere working with Anna and Frank.

As everyone filed out of the makeshift conference room, Jenna leaned into John's side, "I thought this was supposed to be something to gossip over when we got back."

"Life is a twat," he muttered, the half-Welsh in him still not cluing in to the fact that that his choice of language was considered _vulgar_.

Jenna pinched his arm, "So, have you updated your opinion?"

"She is perfection. I didn't even notice that she turned me down until fifteen minutes after it happened. Beautiful creature."

"Do you want a bedpan for all that drool?"

"La, no need to be jealous; you know you have my heart."

"Gross, John."

"She wounds me," he said dramatically to the air.

Frank, who had stayed behind to whisper a few words to Durant, approached the bickering couple with a broad grin on his face, "Connor is going to throw a fit over your behavior. You two know that right?"

"Did we embarrass daddy in front of mommy?" John inquired.

"Ugh, don't ever call Connor daddy again," Jenna shook the chills out of her arms, "completely unnecessary."

"I'm just trying to lighten the mood," the pathologist threw up his hands in defeat, before gracing Frank with a scowl, "We weren't misbehaving enough to cause the particular brand of _sour_ I saw on Connor's face this morning. What happened?"

Frank threw a furtive glance around the conference room before leaning in to whisper, "She offered him a job."

After an appropriate three second pause to digest the information imparted, Jenna and John fell into one another laughing; Frank took his cue to dart away quickly.


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

* * *

 _i_

Anna knew how to dig.

Obviously, this wasn't meant in the context of dirt and holes. Rather, Anna had the uncanny knack of knowing where to look to get information. Any information. Even the confidential stuff, like old employee files.

The photo-copies of the contents of one such file made a satisfying thwack on Jenna's desk. Due to the nature of the setup of the press liaison's office (and her habit of wearing headphones despite Connor's insistence that she not), Anna's entrance had gone unnoticed and the thwack went unheard.

Jenna pulled the headphones from her ears, "What's this?"

"The reason Connor has been on a warpath. I think."

The sound that came out of Jenna's mouth was a cross between a teenage girl squealing over the excitement of drama and a grown woman enthusiastically embracing the violation of privacy standards, "You didn't!"

"Obviously, I did," the pathologist took a seat, "and it was incredibly easy too. Meredith down in HR likes my smile."

"Enough to get canned?"

"She also likes my discretion."

Jenna snorted and snatched up the paperwork of interest, leafing through it quickly, "Have you read this yet?"

Anna's smile, while incredibly rare, was in fact nice. She graced Jenna with one, and the press liaison decided that Meredith down in HR couldn't possibly have any defenses against its dimples and beautiful teeth, "I skimmed the important bits. Of course, Durant is squeaky clean from just about every form scandal – I could have told you that from her choice of fashion. She even managed to get on the fast track for promotion about a decade ago."

"Sounds like she's a competent doctor, so what gives?"

Anna held up a slender finger, indicating that Jenna should give her a minute. After a moment or so of digging through her tote bag, she produced another stack of photo-copies, "I'm literally burning these when we're done looking at them. Durant's file, that'll get me a slap on the wrist. This…it will get me fired."

This time Jenna did hear the satisfying thwack as the stack hit her desk. This quickly turned ominous when she saw the name written on the top sheet, "Nooooo! You didn't! Oh my god, shut the door. Shut the door!"

 _Connor E., Stephen_

 _ii_

So, this was the rough timeline of events, as far as Jenna could gather from the not-literal mountain of paperwork that Anna had so generously gifted her. Obviously, the clinical nature of the NIH's record keeping meant they had to wildly speculate about everything, but that was half of the fun of risking your job over useless gossip.

Durant had been hired in the spring of 1999, damn near fresh out of a residency at Saint Anthony's. The nature of her degree and selected subfield had basically prevented her from dealing with patients on a day-to-day basis, except for in the context of medical trials and the occasional clinic shift. Her initial employment was probationary, nothing in the records even indicated she'd function in the capacity of epidemiology, rather, she was meant to work on medical trials hosted by the NIH. When the probationary period ended, she was hired full time upon the recommendation of her supervisor. By 2001, she was a regular staple on Connor's mobile task force, a lateral promotion that had initially kept her grounded in Bethesda for the greater part of the assignments so that she could remain active in a handful of trials. Upon the recommendation of Connor in 2003, she was made a permanent member of his team and her presence in all but one trial cut.

Jenna had, after reading Connor's second performance evaluation of the pathologist, set the three page manuscript down and gave Anna the 'eye', the one that could roughly be translated to, "What even?"

"The only negative thing he wrote about her was her difficulty relating to patients, but since that's literally not in her job description, it's a non-complaint. Seriously, this is a two thousand word essay and at least 1,750 of them are singing her praises. I feel so cheated. Dude. What happened to that Connor? How did we get stuck with bizarro-Connor, grumpy-in-chief?"

Anna, who was busy digging through the stuff on the man in question, looked up briefly, "You don't make it to regional director of the WHO if your shit stinks, Jenna. Her performance here probably, no…most certainly has put all of us to shame. Oh, hey, here's something."

"Oh look, she got injury compensation for…what!? _A building fell on her!_ I can't even right now, Anna. Who has a building fall on them!?"

Jenna's outburst had cut off Anna, who now looked torn between responding to that really weird tidbit of information and sharing her own. She decided on the latter, "Did you know Connor took a year-long sabbatical back in 2005?"

"The only thing I know about Connor is that he's chummy with Frank. That's all I need to know. Wait, hold on…"

Anna did as she was told, although rather impatiently, "Yeah?"

"When did that sabbatical start?"

"Uh…August 1st, 2005. Why?"

"Aha!" Jenna grinned, "Guess who got a promotion on August 1st, 2005."

"You're shitting me."

"Nope. Looks like it was upon his recommendation – Durant was placed in charge of the mobile task force, again, probationary for a year. I'm going to bet you anything it became permanent in 2006."

"You think she stole his task force and that's why he hates her? I mean, it's a pretty viable theory."

Jenna wouldn't put it past the big guy to go from singing Durant's praises to completely loathing her for something like that. As far as she could tell, upon working with the man, was that his position here was is life.

"I'm going to check. You see what happened when he came back."

They spent the next fifteen minutes in companionable silence (the sort of companionable silence that somehow managed to not be tainted by the fact they were violating the privacy of not only a stranger but their boss); it was occasionally punctuated by the sound of paper turning.

"Huh, no. He got the task force back in September, 2006."

Jenna didn't respond to that, and instead flipped her stack to the corresponding month, "Looks like she got her own, taking over for Dr. Johansson. So, Connor's got no beef."

At this point, something particularly strange happened. Anna, who was typically quite composed, stared down at what appeared to be an email print-out (Jenna had to crane her neck to even catch a glimpse of the subject line and even then could only see the word, "Notice"). Her brown eyes were 1.5x their normal size, and her lips pinched in a way that suggested she didn't know whether or not to actually put to spoken word what she was reading.

"Oh," was how she started, "Ah. Oh. Okay. That's…yeah. I guess more that we wanted to know."

Feeling fifteen again, Jenna rocked in her seat, "Anna, that's not fair! You have to tell me! We're in this together! We're being creeps. Together. Remember?"

Anna coughed, and did a weird thing with her face (by which she scrunched one eye shut then then the other), "So, we don't really have a stringent policy on fraternization. I mean, it's your basic don't screw the interns and the patients sort of stuff, with a little bit of 'don't harass the people you directly supervise'. HR does like it when we tell them that fraternization is occurring, mostly so they can shuffle things around to protect the…you know, image of this place."

"You know this how?" Jenna asked, missing the point.

"Meredith," Anna said darkly, not inviting anymore questions along that front.

"Okay okay, geeze. I'm not going to press you for personal details. Just curious."

"Anyway!" Anna spoke over her, "Most people shoot an email to HR, since there's no real 'I'm sleeping with so-and-so' form to fill out. I mean, could you imagine if there were!"

"That'd be weird." Jenna conceded, still falling a little behind the point being made.

"Hell, I'm guessing even the emails are awkward for everyone, not that I would know. I mean, I guess I do now."

Jenna finally got it, mostly because she'd come across what she assumed was a copy of the same exact email Anna was holding, "OH MY GOD!"

And then, for some inexplicable reason, she started laughing.

 _iii_

They burned the paperwork in Anna's tiny fireplace that night and shared a very large bottle of wine. Somewhere along their third glass, a phone call came through to both of them. Some dire situation in Vermont needed their immediate attention, and of course, because they were drunk at this point, both of them started giggling madly while they climbed into an Uber, taking bets on whether or not they'd be sober enough by the time they arrived to escape the wrath of Connor.

Anna said it didn't matter, since they'd both been drinking red wine and now looked as if their tongues were stained purple. Not that they really cared if Connor yelled at them, since that was his natural state: yelling. It was the fact that John was going to give them hell for not inviting him to the party that was going to be the pain.

 _iv_

John whistled when he saw them, low and slow. Apparently they hadn't sobered up enough. He'd noticed them exiting the Uber and was now (in an odd display of chivalry) holding the front door open for them. "You ladies look like you had a fun night."

He appeared to be interested in any explanation they were willing to provide, but was also uncharacteristically patient about receiving the information.

"Lady's night," Anna muttered.

"Oh, as in…"

"No," Jenna jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.

John let the door shut behind them and slid and arm around their shoulders, "Hey. I don't need to be invited to your lady's nights. That defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Doesn't mean I don't like to hear about 'em afterward."

Anna seemed to be in a charitable mood, most likely the result of the wine, and didn't shrug out from under his arm, "We drank wine and talked about how awful of a human being you are."

Not that charitable.

"You speak such harsh words," John responded, a laugh in his tone.

As they neared the conference room, they caught a glimpse of Frank, who announced to them, unbidden, "I'm getting too old for 3AM calls," before disappearing into the room.

"They're the worst," Jenna slurred after him, meaning something else entirely.

"I'm sure none of you are feeling as bad as the family in Vermont," Connor, the perpetual mood-killer, announced as he walked from behind them into the conference room. When he made it to the table, he turned and looked long and hard and Anna and Jenna, and then pursed his lips, "Do you two need coffee?"

"That doesn't actually work for…" John trailed off under the fire of Connor's glare.

And not for the first time, Jenna found herself laughing. Connor, uncertain of how to respond to that, turned to the case without chastising them further.

A knock on the conference room door quickly drew her laughing to a stop. Connor's uncanny gaze moved over Jenna's shoulder to meet those of the new arrival. After she composed herself further (by rubbing a hand across her face vigorously), Jenna turned, hoping that she hadn't just made a fool of herself in front of someone way more senior, like Ewing or Raster.

No, the man at the door was unassuming, if not slightly goofy looking. Non-descript brown hair and eyes, kind of like Anna's. He seemed not to be fazed by Connor's stare; rather than faltering under it, he granted the older man a smile, one clearly borne by a sort of familiarity, "Hey, Stephen. Kate sent you the message, right?"

"About you tagging along?" If that wasn't fondness in Connor's voice, it was at the very least a tone of earned respect, "Yes. I requested it. You're going to need the practice." Somehow his eyes had found Jenna's before he spoke again, "They're all incorrigible."

This time Frank laughed, before reaching out to clasp the stranger's hand in a firm but friendly shake, "Good to see you again, Miles."

"I still work here, you know," the new guy, Miles, laughed, "One floor up, for the last ten years."

"Out of sight out of mind, man." Frank teased, not unkindly.

At this point, John made himself heard, "Yeah, I have no clue what's going on here."

Without bothering to look at John, Connor stated, "Miles is taking lead on this one. Consider it a trial run." At this, he almost smiled, "He's going to be your new boss."


End file.
